


Feather-Light

by blueincandescence



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Major Endgame Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 12:02:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18604132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueincandescence/pseuds/blueincandescence
Summary: If you've seen the movie, you might guess where I'm going with this.





	Feather-Light

When Steve lifts her body from the cracked ground of a dead planet, Natasha is feather-light. Always was.

Ever since Steve sent Natasha catapulting, exultant, toward death from above, Steve has marveled at her lightness. It humbled him when he walked her out of the rubble of SHIELD. The first home she’d ever chosen, destroyed from the inside out, but her eyes shone when she asked Steve to trust her. Natasha kept him going for five years—every smile, every quip, every half a peanut butter sandwich was light cut through a heavy dark.

Steve had the honor of knowing the woman, the spy, the Avenger he carries across a shallow lake. The weight of her. Not the details that made her the Red Death, the Slavic Shadow. Those Steve never asked, never looked for. It was enough that Natasha’s past pointed her true north, same as him.

Natasha—she didn’t share burdens easily. But she shared Steve’s and, between them, they’d managed.

Steve carries Natasha up a mountain and digs a grave for her where the most stubborn grasses grow. He covers her in soil that isn’t earth. He breaks down because had they let themselves know the cost of the Soul Stone, said it out loud, Natasha Romanoff would have still ended up right here.

No one understood the math of their work like Natasha. So she'd kept quiet, tallying that ledger in her head—New York, Sokovia, the UN. Thanos. Trillions of souls saved by one sacrifice.

Whatever it took. Steve had learned that from her.

“It’s not so bad.”

Steve stills. There are no footfalls, but her approach reverberates through him. Steve lifts his head. Sees only dawn light breaking through clouds. 

“Where else would I get a view like this?”

Steve hangs his head on a laugh. When he is ready to see her, he stands. Natasha is beside him. Suited up, for a moment. Red hair, blonde. Then in yoga pants and a multi-colored braid. Her mouth curves. Steve smiles back, no other way to repay her.

From safekeeping, Steve takes out the Soul Stone, holding it up between two fingers. “We did it.”

“I know.” Natasha’s skin glints the same sun-brightened shade as the stone. "I felt it."

Steve swallows. “Bruce. He tried to bring you back. He—”

“I know,” Natasha says again. A breeze picks up, and she breathes in. 

“Not your moment?” Steve asks, echoing two dozen conversations at least.

“Not our reality,” Natasha amends. Her smile takes on that knowing glint Steve loved so well.

He nods, doesn’t ask for details. It’s enough that, in their reality, Natasha made them family.

The Soul Stone weighs no more than a marble. Steve rolls it between his fingers. “Am I supposed to give this to you?” By the time he’s finished the sentence, the stone is gone from his hand.

“It’s where it belongs,” Natasha confirms. She turns an eyebrow on Steve. “But you’re not.”

Huffing a laugh, Steve looks out onto the horizon.

Natasha keeps her eyes trained on him. "The others are," she insists.

Steve supposes this is true. Tony is at rest. Clint at home. Thor is on an adventure. Bruce is whole. Steve was on a mission but now it's done. One trip left. “You're right," he admits. Though it hurt Natasha sometimes, it had always been true. "But, you know, Vomir is growing on me. Company’s good.”

Natasha is already fading when Steve looks over. Not to ash but to light. Not out of existence but somehow further into it. Even three times used, the power of the Soul Stone remains the universe’s greatest mystery. Knowing Natasha, that’s what drew her to it.

“See you, Steve.” From Natasha—this newest, brightest iteration of her—it's less a goodbye than a promise.

Steve was an art school kid, not a classicist. But even he knows of Anubis and his scales. From the light that is Natasha Romanoff, a single feather materializes and drifts with a peaceful breeze.


End file.
